Why is my flow not picking up a condition of matching a date with today

[asma_wali92]

Hi,

I've been stuck at a point for past few days and have tried all different expressions and flows to resolve the issue but somehow end up at starting point. 

I have created a flow which is triggered by recurrence (runs a check everyday), gets details from an MS form and apply following 2 conditions to CONFIRMATION DATE and STATUS columns:

1. If CONFIRMATION DATE is equal to 'Today' (using utcNow('MM-dd-yyyy') expression)

2. If STATUS is not equal to 'Complete'

But when i test it, it always runs the flow for all entries in form without running a check on the date that is today. 

[rzaneti]

Hi @asma_wali92 ,

Please, confirm if you are pulling the date from Excel in the ISO format:

If yes, could you please share the raw outputs from your 'List rows present in a table' action to we see exactly how the date is being pulled? Make sure to remove any sensitive content from the image.

[asma_wali92]

I just changed the DateTime Format to ISO Format, previously there was nothing selected. However, it still is doing the same. 

Here is the raw output (Confirmation Date 2 months is the column's actual name) 

I dont know if it has something to do with a separate flow which is connect with this one - The confirmation date is calculated through a separate flow using following expression: 

getFutureTime(60, 'Day', 'MM-dd-yyyy')

[rzaneti]

Hi @asma_wali92 ,

Thank you for sending the outputs. To match the both dates - even if they are related to the same day -, you need to make sure that the date formats are the same. For example, two variables with Aug 1st 2023, one represented as 'yyyy-MM-dd' and other as 'dd/MM/yyyy' will be considered different, even we knowing that they are the same date. I ran this test here:

And the result was 'false':

So the solution here is just to format your Excel date inside the 'Condition' test to 'MM-dd-yyyy'. 

Let me know if it works for you or if you need any additional help!

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[asma_wali92]

Hi,

I'm using this format in the condition box

The expressions is also 'TRUE' in the output, however it initiates the next steps for all the entries in the form without checking the dates. 

[rzaneti]

Hi @asma_wali92 ,

That's because your left side of the expression eventually is not matching with the date format of the right side. When Excel returns the ISO format, it is not following the 'MM-dd-yyyy', so if you compare with utcNow(), it will be have its differences.

As you are comparing strings in your 'Condition' (the timestamp has a string datatype), you are not exactly asking to Power Automate to check which date is more recent. The string comparison takes into consideration the characters position, which sometimes is not so logic and may be the cause of your condition return always 'true'. 

If you want to compare an equality in the dates, you need to make sure that both sides follow the same format, and that's why I recommended to use the 'formatDateTime' in the left side input, where you are entering the 'Excel' data. If you want to check if some date is more recent than other, the approach is different and you will need to use the dateDifference() expression, which will return for you a timespan. 

[asma_wali92]

Can you please write down the expression to be used on the left side (excel side) of the condition? I tried the formatedatetime one and it doesnt work. 

Also, im confused, if i mentioned date format on the left side, how will the system recognize which column to pick for running the check?

[rzaneti]

Hi @asma_wali92 ,

Sure!

For the left side of the condition: formatDateTime(item()?['Confirmation Date (2 months)'], 'MM-dd-yyyy')

For the right side of the condition: formatDateTime(utcNow(), 'MM-dd-yyyy')

Let me know if it works for you!